Shelley Fralic: At 50, Metro Vancouver's Black Bond has survived the book wars

Shelley Fralic, Vancouver Sun10.22.2013

Black Bond Books president Cathy Jesson.Lisa King
/ For the Now

Black Bond family ties: president Cathy Jesson, middle, with daughter Caitlin, left, and mother Madeline, right. Behind them is a mural of the first Black Bond book store, which opened in Brandon, Manitoba in 1963.

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Cathy Jesson will tell you it all happened rather organically, but buried in the fine print of the story about how her family came to own the largest independent bookselling company in the country is the clear resolve of an astute business woman.

But then, she comes by that naturally, for her books-in-the-blood acumen began in October of 1963, when her mother Madeline opened a book store in the bustling university town of Brandon, Manitoba.

Black Bond Books — the name is a nod to Cathy’s grandmothers, Celia Black and Catherine Bond — thrived, and when Madeline and her husband Barry decided to move out west, Cathy stayed behind for several more years to run the place.

She was 21 then, but had started working in the store as a kid, earning 25 cents an hour for shelving books and assorted grunt work, and soon became so attuned to the business that today, at 61, she’s in charge of the chain’s 10 stores, all of them located in Metro Vancouver.

But back to how it all began.

In Vancouver, Madeline had begun working for a small chain called Julian Books, one of many Vancouver-area independents that would come and go over the years, but her entrepreneurial bent soon found her back in business for herself, when she opened a Black Bond in White Rock in the early 1970s.

Several years later, the family sold the Brandon store and Cathy, husband Mel and their kids, Matthew and Caitlin, headed out to the coast to help expand the business, which happened at something of a breakneck pace over the next decade or so.

Today, their doors are open in Maple Ridge, Mission, New Westminster, Ladner, Lynn Valley, Richmond, White Rock, North Surrey, South Surrey and, last year, Vancouver, with the acquisition of the Book Warehouse.

While some of the stores have changed physical locations over the years, what has remained constant is a business ethic that focuses on knowing the community — and therefore what their customers want to read — and hiring the kind of people who share the passion and who, as many of the managers have, stay with Black Bond for years.

There is also continuity found in family: Her late father looked after marketing, sister Vicky ran the Maple Ridge store for years, and today Cathy’s daughter Caitlin oversees the Book Warehouse.

Brother Michael eventually opened his own store, Mosaic Books, in Kelowna, and Madeline, now 84, retired a dozen years ago but is still an active voice in the business.

Those 50 years have seen much change, both for Jesson’s family and for the business of selling books. It is hard enough for any firm to stay afloat for half a century, but the seismic economic, technological and social forces working against the viability of the traditional independent book store — remember Duthie Books? — have long threatened its survival.

The arrival of the big chains such as Chapters in the ’90s, for instance, was a huge blow. Black Bond’s second store, which opened in Langley in the late 1970s, ultimately did not survive the competition against the local big box, Chapters.

Concerning, too, has been the Amazon effect and the advent of the ebook, the electronic substitute that can put more titles at a readers’ fingertips than any bricks and mortar store could ever dream.

Jesson says it has been tough to weather the storm of change, but they have done so by sticking to what they know best — understanding their customers. She is also quick to acknowledge the value to the industry of a Goliath like Chapters, because “it’s important to keep publishing strong.”

Black Bond stores average under 4,000 square feet and carry about 20,000 titles, and while some genres such as romance have fallen out of favour in recent years, she is heartened by the fact that “we’re big readers out here” and by what she and her staff see as a resurgence in hard copy book reading in certain demographics, such as the preteen crowd, who are into collecting titles such as blockbusters Harry Potter and Twilight series along with current favourites such as Geronimo Stilton and Charlie Bone.

That, coupled with a recent uptick in the U.S. bookselling market, is good news for Canada’s 400-plus independent sellers, says Jesson.

So, too, is the popularity of trade paperbacks — the affordable soft cover books that are larger than old-school paperbacks but not as ungainly or expensive as bulky hard covers. They are increasingly becoming the choice of customers and Jesson hopes book publishers will start taking that into account when making their decisions.

If there’s one discouraging trend, though, it is what she sees as a book reading “gap” in adults in the 30s and mid-40s age range, who seem more taken with “computers, Facebook and gaming.”

However one chooses to interpret the dire predictions facing many hard copy print products, whether newspapers or novels, Black Bond is not done yet. The past few years have been tough for the chain, as for most businesses struggling in a wobbly economy, but Jesson’s future plans reveal much optimism.

She says they will soon be adding more staff to their 100-strong workforce and they are always on the hunt for new locations, which these days means they are sussing out the downtown Vancouver core and the hip Main Street corridor for expansion.

And there’s a new generation joining the book club: granddaughter Juliette, born just last week, and you can bet that nursery library is already well stocked.

Finally, you have to ask: When you spend every day buying books, selling books and going to conventions and trade shows to talk about books, what does the person who owns the book store like to read?

“Murder mysteries,” which is about the last thing you expected to hear.

Oh, and there’s this. Don’t even think about opening a book store because you like to read books.

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Shelley Fralic: At 50, Metro Vancouver's Black Bond has survived the book wars

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